The Malik Report

The Detroit Red Wings' 5-2 victory against the Vancouver Canucks started with a stunned Jimmy Howard wondering how his team parted like the red sea with a red light glowing behind him, and it concluded with Howard gloving a final-second puck like he was picking cherries.

In the middle, Howard was heroic, Pavel Datsyuk seems to like playing for Detroit, Henrik Zetterberg and the Wings' power play got off the "schneid" and Justin Abdelkader somewhat surprisingly proved the old Tomas Holmstrom axiom that, "If you stand close enough to a stick, you can use an oar for a stick and you'll still score"--all while playing on a left foot that was cut down to the bone in last night's win over Edmonton.

At some points, it was ugly as hell, at some points, it was terrifying--see a 16-6 Canucks shot advantage in the 1st, a Jannik Hansen penalty shot that hit the goalpost over Howard's glove and 4 third-period penalties--but the Wings prevailed over themselves and the Canucks, and it was just wonderful to see.

Ahead of tonight's game between the Red Wings and Canucks (10 PM EDT, FSD Plus/CBC/NHL Network U.S./WXYT AM) a trio of stories have popped up that don't quite fit as part of the game-day update thread.

The Vancouver Province's Ed Willes had a conversation with Wings coach Mike Babcock and GM Ken Holland during the morning skate, discussing Detroit's precarious place in the Western Conference standings, and both Babcock and Holland delivered blunt assessments of the Wings' status during this 48-games-in-99-nights demolition derby:

Updated 9x at 5:05 PM: The Red Wings will hope to build off of their 3-2 OT win over Edmonton when they face the Vancouver Canucks tonight (10 PM EDT, FSD Plus/CBC/NHL Network U.S./WXYT AM, and Danny Cleary will appear on the CBC's After Hours), but the Free Press's Helene St. James and MLive's Ansar Khan report that they will do so without the services of Kyle Quincey:

Holland said White has fractured cheek bone. Will see doctor Monday to determine if surgery needed.

The Detroit Red Wings flew to Vancouver to complete their Western Canadian road swing minus Kyle Quincey, who will probably miss some time due to what is likely a bruised or chipped cheekbone, but plus two points thanks to an absolutely fantastic third period and overtime's worth of hockey, allowing the Wings to secure a 3-2 OT victory and all but literally steal 2 points from the Edmonton Oilers.

Tonight, the Wings will face a Vancouver Canucks team (10 PM EDT, FSD Plus/CBC/NHL Network U.S./WXYT AM) whose 13-7-and-6 record is good for all of a one-point lead over the 13-10-and-5 Wings in the Western Conference standings, but they're going to face a Canucks team that's on a very different trajectory of late.

While the Wings have won one of their past four games, the Canucks have won two straight, including a 7-4 win over Nashville on Thursday and a 2-1 shootout win over those dastardly Blue Jackets this past Tuesday, and have secured points in 5 of the 7 games they've played this month (3-2-and-2), rebounding significantly from...The 8-3 trouncing the Wings gave the Canucks on February 24th.

The Red Wings flew to Vancouver for tonight's game against the Canucks (10 PM EDT, FSD Plus/CBC/NHL Network U.S./1270 AM) somewhat remarkably sitting in fifth place in the Western Conference standings and 5 points instead of 1 point up on the Edmonton thanks to a third-period comeback and some Datsyukian thievery en route to a 3-2 OT win over the Edmonton Oilers.

The Oilers, who hadn't won a home game after a road trip in...A long time...Were understandably both frustrated with and a little flummoxed about the ways that the Wings unraveled their opponent, as they told the Edmonton Sun's Robert Tychkowski...

The Red Wings suffered a significant personnel loss in their 3-2 OT win over Edmonton. Kyle Quincey accidentally deflected a shot into his own face, and the team believes that his cheek might be broken, as noted by the Free Press's Helene St. James...

Quincey was hit by a puck that ramped up Quincey's stick and hit him in the face during the third period of Friday's 3-2 overtime victory over the Oilers at Rexall Place. He was well enough to walk out of the arena, but team doctors wanted him to get an X-Ray - which wasn't available at Rexall - and fear the pressure of flying would be too much for Quincey. He stayed behind in Edmonton with assistant trainer Russ Baumann,

"We don't want him to fly in case he's got something broken," general manager Ken Holland said. "We'll find out in the morning."

Updated at 12:28 AM: The news on Kyle Quincey's cheek is not good. The Detroit Red Wings looked down, out and plain old lost afer giving up first and second goals against the Edmonton Oilers (see: Taylor Hall splits everyone, and Jonathan Ericsson's stick getting grabbed yields an easy rebound tap-in for Sam Gagner). The team seemed out of sorts, skating on the wrong side of the puck and puck battles in every zone, back-passing and deking and dangling themselves into oblivion for the first 40 minutes of the game.

But something must have been said by someone during the second intermission, because the Wings woke up, and all of a sudden, the winless-after-a-road-trip Oilers were in a world of hurt. After giving up 26 shots over the first 40 minutes, the Wings out-shot Edmonton 12-6 in the 3rd period and got a gorgeous 2-1 goal from Valtteri Filppula, and kept pressing until a second power play's worth of chances resulted in a circle and drag by Henrik Zetterberg, a drop pass to Niklas Kronwall and perhaps the most beautiful goal Jeff Petry will ever score for the Red Wings. All of a sudden, with 5:53 left in the 3rd period, things were tied.

Pretty spiffy stuff: the Red Wings never had a strength and conditioning coach during their Cup-winning heydays of the late 90's and early 00's, but toward the end of Chris Chelios and Kris Draper's tenures with the team, the training staff realized that they could use a non-player's brain to pick in their attempts to keep the Wings ahead of the NHL's fitness curve.

Pete Renzetti now takes care of both the Wings' prospects and prime time players' fitness needs, and Fox Sports Detroit's Justin White took part in a workoud that's specifically designed to address players' needs to efficiently work out without pushing themselves to the point of fatigue given this year's condensed schedule:

About The Malik Report

The Malik Report is a destination for all things Red Wings-related. I offer biased, perhaps unprofessional-at-times and verbose coverage of my favorite team, their prospects and developmental affiliates. I've joined the Kukla's Korner family with five years of blogging under my belt, and I hope you'll find almost everything you need to follow your Red Wings at a place where all opinions are created equal and we're all friends, talking about hockey and the team we love to follow.